


wherever this arrow lands

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Framework, it may not seem like it at first but it is i promise, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10640463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: After the Framework, Fitz is struggling to shake it off, so Fitz and Jemma go to visit his mother in Glasgow. There they reconnect with Fitz's true past, his true self... and his future.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The Framework is giving us all Emotions right now, but that doesn't mean there can't still be a happy ending. It might not come exactly the way we think, but all storms clear eventually.
> 
> -
> 
> The book referenced in this story is a real and specific version of Robin Hood, written by Howard Pyle.

_Where-ever this arrow lands; bury me there._

_-_ The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, by Howard Pyle.

-

Jemma burst into the room and was already rifling through those belongings they hadn’t moved off-base yet, searching for a good jacket, when she realised there was someone else in the room. She jumped. 

“Fitz?” 

He looked up sluggishly from the tablet he was reading. “Mm?” 

“You’re done early.” Frowning, Jemma approached the bed. “Is everything okay?” 

Fitz sighed, the ache suddenly clear through his whole body. He lowered the tablet and raked a hand over his face. 

“I couldn’t do it, Jemma,” he confessed. “I couldn’t walk into the lab. I just – it’s like, every time I think of picking something up, making something, all I can think of is him. What _he_ made. What _he_ did with it. With my hands. All my work is – is – is –“ 

Shaking, he clenched a fist as the word eluded him. He was not sure there was a word for this, even if he could find it. Jemma seemed to understand, though, and she crawled across the bed to his side and eased his fist open so that he was holding her hand instead. 

“Have you been in here alone all day?” she asked. 

Fitz shrugged, but avoided her eyes. 

“Mack’s off duty, of course,” he explained. “I ran into Daisy in the kitchen – I can hardly look at her. There’s no way I’m going anywhere near May. The things I said to her. About Bahrain. Twisting it on her like that.” 

Jemma squeezed his hand, and he sighed again. 

“I know,” he assured her, “I know it wasn’t me. But it’s still in my memories, my hands, my voice. My brain has enough trouble sorting out what’s real and what’s not. I’ll be fine, I just need some time. I’ll just catch up on some reading and paperwork. It’s fine, Jemma. Go back to work, please.” 

Jemma scoffed. 

“Absolutely not.” 

Fitz frowned. 

“You just came in here to get a jacket. There’s no reason to cut your day short.” 

“There most certainly is.” She cuddled closer to him, defiant, and he wrapped an arm around her with an uneasy smile, still lost in unpleasant thoughts. He picked the tablet back up with one hand, and pretended to read the article he had open on it, but Jemma could see that his eyes were not moving. 

“Fitz,” she prompted. “Tell me what’s wrong.” 

He was silent for a long moment, the weight of all possible answers heavy on his expression, his posture, his soul. 

“I’ve been thinking about seeing Mum,” he offered, in the end. “I haven’t seen her since before the Pod. I didn’t realise it’d been that long. I really miss her, that’s all – especially after, you know. And as it turns out, I can’t get much done around here anyway. So why not go?” 

“Well?” Jemma prodded. “Why not?” 

He hadn’t come up with a way to put words to that answer yet, it seemed, but in the silence Jemma felt her own reasoning come to bear. It was the same reason, she imagined, why she had not visited her own parents in as long. So much had happened to them, they could never explain it. Their families could never understand – and nor should they, really. It was the life they had signed up for, after all. Being the Shield. Taking the hits. Suffering, so that the people they love did not have to suffer. And they were in too deep now; they had lost so much, in so many unexplainable ways, they could never quite go back to pretending it was all heroic missions and zany experiments. Their parents would always see the ghosts of what they were not saying, and not knowing how to deal with that was a daunting thing. 

“I think we should,” Jemma assured Fitz. “Let’s take some time off, and go visit. It doesn’t have to be like it was before. She knows we can’t tell her everything. I’m sure she’d just love to see your face again and know that you’re okay. Maybe that will be enough.” 

“I’d love to see her,” Fitz breathed. “And I think it might even help me feel… normal again. If I go to my _real_ home, see my real life… You know?” 

“I think so too,” Jemma agreed. She flashed him a brave smile – it took courage to reach out; a particular kind of courage that she struggled with as much as he did. Together, they pushed through it, and found their flights, and had their leave signed off by Coulson with a proud, almost nostalgic look in his eyes. Home was such a dreamlike concept here, he thought, and yet here these two were, their feet always finding their way back to the path toward it. They walked tall and proud and happy, relatively, but he imagined even if they’d been wounded soldiers, limping down the road and hanging onto each other for dear life, they’d always have that grounding thought of home, of each other, an invisible strength that pulled them on toward hope. 

And it was hope that Fitz felt, at long last, as they broke through the cloud layer. In his lap, he held one of Jemma’s hands, and he looked out the window, watching the slowly shifting, whirling clouds and their meringue-like peaks, glinting in the bright sun. He wondered if this was how she felt, like a weight was lifting off her chest, when she saw the sunrise. 

As if she could read his mind, she smiled. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she posited. This time, rather than being lost for words, he simply didn’t feel the need to answer her. Instead, he felt like maybe, for once, the cosmos was whispering _you’re going to be alright._

_-_

Still, seeing his mother for the first time in so many years – and such formative years they had been, too – was a tearful affair. She had of course been updated on his progress since the Pod, and Fitz had given her the odd phone call since then, but to finally see her boy _in the flesh,_ so much more of a man than he had been - older, stronger, more mature, and so physically different too – was enough to reduce her to tears within seconds of opening the door. Fitz faired a little better, but only because he hid his face with a hug. He locked his arms around his mother, squeezing tightly, and counted the heartbeats as he felt the world shift back into place and steady beneath him. 

“It’s good to see you, Mum,” he whispered. 

She hugged him, and cried. 

- 

After an emotional reunion, tea and cake were of course in order, and things settled down somewhat. Fitz and Jemma recounted what details they could about the Pod and the recovery and what had gone on since then, making their way in leaps and jumps through the story of how they’d finally gotten together. That way, at least, they knew it would have a happy ending. Despite all that they’d had to leave out, Fitz’s mother clapped when they announced the end of the story, and beamed, and hurried out of her seat. 

“You disappear, and come back with this!” she cried. “Leopold! Why didn’t you warn me? I have a gift for you! I could’ve brought it out of the bloody storeroom…” 

She trailed off, muttering to herself as she shoved open a reluctant door leading off the lounge room, and began digging through years of various acquired _stuff._ Fitz perked up at this, and trailed his mother to the doorway, looking in after her. It was a bedroom, somewhere under all that – his old bedroom. Now, it was full of extra furniture, an ironing board, some sheets and things thrown haphazardly, but also smaller ornaments and photographs dotted around the flat surfaces, on shelves and desks. Somewhere under bags of clothes for goodwill there was a bed, and behind a stepladder he himself had repaired a handful of times, was a bookshelf that still held the literature of his childhood. He knelt before it, searching through the books and telling himself it was the dust that pricked at his eyes and caused the lump in his throat. 

“What’s this?” 

It was Jemma’s voice; she had come to kneel beside him. She looked over the titles he had taken out; from _Dear Zoo_ and _Curious George,_ to _The Wind in the Willows._ In between, there was the Magic School Bus series, some of the Famous Five, and _Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy_ – Jemma snorted at that. 

“We need a photo of that one for Daisy,” she whispered, and grinned back at Fitz, already pulling her phone out of her pocket to take the shot. Fitz, however, was distracted, by one of the larger, hard-cover books that remained in the back of the shelf. He drew it out slowly, running his hand over the cover with reverence. All his books were a little ratty – and if he remembered correctly, most of them had always been that way – but he remembered this one more than all the others. He remembered how he’d been the one to tear the top of the spine. How he’d got so upset one day that he’d thrown it or something, and crinkled one of the corners – hardcovers weren’t supposed to do that. He even remembered the illustration; the very specific style of drawing, that he had not realised until now, had stuck in his mind. 

“Fitz?” Jemma prompted. 

“I’m fine, Jemma,” he assured her, and opened the book slowly. He turned through the pages, drinking in their familiarity moreso than the story itself. 

“What are you two up to over there?” his mother wondered, giving up her search for a while to check on them. She saw what Fitz was looking at, and crooned. 

“Ah,” she reminisced. “ _The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood._ That was your favourite book as a kid, you know. You’d go months at a time without letting me read anything else before bed. And it did you good, too. I couldn’t be more proud of you, Leo. And Jemma – I’m so glad my boy fell in love with such a lovely woman, and was lucky enough to have you love him back. I hope I’m not being too presumptuous with this but, if you don’t mind, I’d like to give you something.” 

She held out an open ring box, and inside was a silver ring with a square diamond at its centre, in a simple but elegant setting. It had tarnished a little with age, but still gleamed with promise. 

“My ring’s long gone, and good riddance to it,” Fitz’s mother explained, “but Fitz, this belonged to your Nan. She and Grandpa Henry had a long and happy marriage, and that’s what I wish for you two. That’s all I wish.” 

It was Jemma who had to blink back tears this time. She remembered not-Fitz suggesting his intent to propose, and while she could do without thinking about the specific circumstances of it, she had nursed that image all this time: the gleaming promise, under all their struggles, to which they would always return. 

“Jemma?” Fitz checked, a slight frown creasing his brow. She almost laughed. Of course, he didn’t know she knew. 

“You mentioned it,” she said. “You were…talking in your sleep.” 

“Oh.” Fitz let his eyes fall down to the ring, which he had taken from his mother. Jemma’s roundabout way of explaining it suggested that _asleep_ meant _in there,_ but that wasn’t why she was crying. It was love, she was in love, and the pain had been that she hadn’t been able to say it when she had been asked. 

“…Well,” Fitz continued. “Since I’ve already blown the surprise, apparently –“ 

He dropped down to one knee, and Jemma couldn’t help it; she still gasped, and let her hands fly to her mouth, and she grinned so broadly her cheeks hurt despite her tears. 

“Jemma Anne Simmons. You know I’m not as good with words as I once was, but… I hope by now you also know that I love you more than words can say, anyway. And I know you love me too. And I know that now is probably a bad time, but if we wait for the right time, we’ll be waiting the rest of our lives. I don’t want to wait anymore, Jemma. I don’t want to wait ever again. And I know I can’t always be with you, and I know that all this is just a symbol, but it’s a symbol that I want to share with you. So… will you marry me?” 

It had taken so much effort not to interrupt him, that Jemma had to wait a few seconds until after he was done, before she finally reacted. 

 _“Yes._ Of course I will, you wonderful, wonderful man.” 

He stood, and caught her as she leapt into his arms and they kissed and embraced until, laughing, they finally unfolded from each other. 

“Oh, darn!” Evelyn cried, waving her phone in frustration. “I just got this bloody thing working. Get back to kissing.” 

She waved at them insistently, and blushing a little, they obligingly posed with their necks outstretched and their lips on each others’ for a photogenic, if not particularly comfortable kiss. Then, at last, Fitz slid the ring onto Jemma’s finger, and they posed with that too, for a few shots. 

“Now this,” Fitz murmured into Jemma’s hair, “is the photo to send to Daisy.”


End file.
